My great grandfather Henry Richard Smith was a Signalman 1st Class onboard HMS Boadicea during 1881. And I've obtained a copy of his service papers from the national archive at Kew.Presumably if he had been involved in the Naval Brigade this would have been recorded something along the lines of :

"xyz date - disembarked Naval Brigade " and then later shown as having rejoined the Boadicea in July 1881.

As it is there are no such entries and, given that he was a Signalman 1st class, I'm guessing that he would have been more likely to have remained on board as part of the skeleton crew as there would still have been an ongoing need for communications even though they weren't actually at sea.

Interestingly he was previously aboard HMS Flora which of course contributed 2 officers but no men to the Naval Brigade.

Presumably if he had been involved in the Naval Brigade this would have been recorded something along the lines of :"xyz date - disembarked Naval Brigade " and then later shown as having rejoined the Boadicea in July 1881.

Sadly I don't think you can make that assumption. Even serving ashore, he'd still be assigned to the Boadicea

In the Ashantee war, for example, I know of some who without doubt served ashore in the Naval Brigade, but this isn't explicitly noted in their records.

does anyone have a medal roll from the transvaal war as i am trying to see if Gunner John Carroll (who was in the Zulu war) returned to South Africa for this conflict. I know he did not pick up his zulu medal due to desertion, and am trying to narrow down where/when this occured